


I Hear The Bells

by alchemystique



Series: Bells-verse [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 10:05:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6653500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemystique/pseuds/alchemystique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If pressed, Emma can’t be certain she could explain how exactly she got to this moment, but it starts out something like this:</p><p>She shuts the laptop on the frozen image of Killian’s smile, and Henry rounds on her, still beaming at Killian’s parting words to him, a hearty congratulations on his writing award and a promise to send over the sheet music to Thunderstruck, because Killian is a rockstar and he knows 2Cellos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Hear The Bells

If pressed, Emma can’t be certain she could explain how exactly she got to this moment, but it starts out something like this:

She shuts the laptop on the frozen image of Killian’s smile, and Henry rounds on her, still beaming at Killian’s parting words to him, a hearty congratulations on his writing award and a promise to send over the sheet music to Thunderstruck, because Killian is a rockstar and he knows 2Cellos.

Okay, rewind.

Really it started with a magical Christmas, with her crazy son meeting a celebrity on a flight home and inviting the strange man to spend the holidays with them. It’s a story straight out of a shitty rom com, but this is Emma’s actual life. But just as rom coms often do, she’d managed to find the beginnings of what might possibly be a real happy ending for her.

But back to the point.

Henry’s smile slips off his face as he gives her a serious staredown.

“Why haven’t you asked him to move in yet?”  


It’s been six months since she met him, but it feels like the blink of an eye, and somehow simultaneously like a million lifetimes.

He’s been here all but two weekends of the last four months, and since the time they’d nearly been eighty-sixed from Granny’s when the poor woman had stumbled upon them furiously making out in the hallway outside his room like a couple of horny teenagers, they’d dropped the pretense around Henry and he’s been staying at the house, but...

“It’s been six months.”  


“I can count too, mom.”  


“Henry, you can’t just go around _asking_ people to move in with you.”  


“He’s gonna marry you.” Henry says it like it’s just a fact of life, and Emma tries not to blanche.  


Killian has gotten very good at understanding where her boundaries lie, and thus far the most serious she’s managed to get without freaking has been clearing off a hat on her coat rack to make space for his leather jacket. (Henry doesn’t know about the house key slowly burning a hole in the bottom of her sock drawer as it screams and cries for freedom, calling her a coward for going three towns over to have it copied to begin with and then proceeding to _not give it to Killian._ )

Marriage is hardly a topic on either of their minds, and she tells Henry so.

“Mom.” It’s the most disappointed, judgy word he’s ever spoken.  


“Henry.”  


“Mom, he spent half an hour last weekend talking to Mary Margaret about flower arrangements and wedding venues for the spring season.”  


“Mary Margaret is a wedding planner, what else is she gonna talk about?”  


Henry throws his hands in the air, looking exasperated.

“Why do you think he wanted to talk to Mary Margaret in the first place, mom?”  


Emma is still skeptical. Killian isn’t the kind of guy to foist a surprise like that on her. He usually takes her lead.

_They don’t even live together yet._

Oh.

She squints at Henry. Henry raises an eyebrow, and Emma wonders if his private Skype sessions with Killian have included lessons on that particular skill.

They stand off for a good five minutes in complete silence, making faces at each other.

“Go to your room,” she tells him, mostly joking, and he shrugs.  


“Beats doing the dishes.”  


How did she raise such a sweet kid to have so much sass?

“Are you telling me that the only reason Killian hasn’t gotten serious is that I’m holding back?” Asking her teenage son for romantic advice is probably on the list of things she shouldn’t do, but it’s never stopped her before.  


“I’m telling you you’re the poster child for emotional constipation. Killian’s not going anywhere. We’re stuck with him until you decide you hate him. Which, if we’re taking my vote into account, would definitely be never.”  


\-----

The next time Killian visits, she clears out half the closet for him and hands him the key. He smiles, presses a kiss to her temple, and that’s that. Easy as pie. 

When Henry comes home from school that afternoon, he gives Emma a look so smug she wants to throw something at him, and asks Killian if him moving in means Henry will have all hours access to his Les Paul. 

Her kid and his priorities.

\------

Henry and Emma miss him most during the summer while he’s off putting the finishing touches on his new album. They pretend not to - he’s only lived with them a handful of months, and it’s not like they didn’t have lives before he dropped into their laps, but the house is too quiet, and the coffee maker doesn’t work quite the same, and when Henry tells Killian he’s in a writing funk Killian’s face does this hopelessly concerned flop that makes Emma want to reach through the screen and hug him for about ten hours.

He flies them out three days later.

The media has a heyday the first time a pap gets a picture of them, strolling down the street after dinner one night, Henry rolling his eyes, Killian gesturing grandly, Emma staring at them both fondly.

She doesn’t get used to it, not at first - seeing her face plastered across the tabloids in the grocery store, seeing _Henry’s_ face on some shitty TMZ knockoff site - she definitely isn’t used to it when Neal sends her the link to the Perez Hilton headline that reads “ _Killian Jones’ Secret Love Child_ ” right before he calls her to bitch about it for twenty minutes, like Neal has any right to tell her how to live her life. 

Thankfully, the public at large has no idea that Killian Jones spends his off days helping her kid with his homework and fixing her garbage disposal when it starts making that funny gargling noise. 

The summer passes in a haze of packing boxes and amusing anecdotes from David about his adventures in soon-to-be fatherhood, stories about the usual antics from the townspeople, and Snapchats from Mary Margaret and her ever growing belly. 

“You know I don’t know how to use that thing,” she tells her friend, her phone tucked between her ear and her shoulder as she stuffs one of Killian’s ratty old teeshirts into the “Goodwill” box for the fifth time.   


“It’s easy. Have Henry show you. Or Killian. Killian uses it all the time.”  


“You’re missing the subtext here, which is I don’t wanna.”  


“You gotta stay hip with the times, Emma.”  


She’s still trying to figure out how to get rid of all the apps on her phone she doesn’t want.

Over the line, Mary Margaret pauses, and Emma can hear soft music playing in the background. “I like Killian’s new single,” she finally tells Emma, and Emma hums. She’s heard it a million times in it’s many iterations, has listened to Killian working out the chords, watched him scribbling out lyrics, waking at odd hours of the night to jot in the notebook he keeps by the bed. He was honestly pretty secretive about it, and now that Emma’s heard the whole thing, she’s not entirely sure why, but it’s good. It’s a good song. It makes her feel a lot of things she doesn’t particularly enjoy talking about, but. It’s a good song.

“Do _you_ like it?” Mary Margaret asks, and there’s a curious rise in her voice that Emma doesn’t understand.   


“Yeah. It’s...its kinda sad. But I like it.”  


“Oh.” Mary Margaret mulls over her words for a bit, and there’s still something she isn’t saying, but for the life of her Emma can’t figure it out. “I think it’s kind of hopeful.”  


They talk for a few more minutes, and Emma can’t fight the feeling that there’s something her friend isn’t saying, but they say goodbye and Emma is immediately swept up in the last of the packing Killian and Henry are doing before they fly back home next week.

 _Home_. It’s such a silly word to get flustered over, and yet, here she is, getting warm fuzzies just thinking about it. 

Killian presses a kiss into her neck and sweeps her into a lazy half-dance, spinning her across the wood floors of the house he means to sell when he can, and she’s so swept up in the moment that she misses him digging his stupid ratty tee shirt out of the donation box.

\------

Dating a rockstar had sounded great in theory, and the part where they’re actually together and in love is about as great as it could possibly be, but she forgets sometimes all the obligations that come with creating popular music.

Like the press. And the tour dates.

The media, without the continued presence of Emma and Henry in LA with Killian, dies down after a while, left with articles about why his album had taken so long, and the occasional speculative romantic entanglement with whoever they can think to pair him off with. 

Last week it was Taylor Swift, and Emma and David had had a good long laugh about it while Killian grumbled across the table from them, throwing fries into the haggard mess of David’s hair, which he keeps telling them is new parent chic.

He puts off planning the tour for nearly a month, until his agent starts calling him up at all hours of the day and night to remind him that despite his success, he is still, in fact, beholden to the record label, and his fans.

He spends the next three months calling her up when he can find the time, and the Skype dates become a regular thing again, but this time she’s used to waking up next to him, used to sharing the bathroom sink with his myriad of hair products, used to brushing her teeth while he bites his tongue an concentrates on his eyeliner. 

This time she misses him almost more than she can fathom.

It puts a strain on them, and she tries not to let it show but it bubbles over, eventually, as these things do. They snap at each other, she screens his calls, Henry shoots her annoyed glares over the dinner table and tells her she’s being stupid.

She is being stupid. It’s kind of what she does. Killian knew that when he signed up for...whatever it is they’re doing.

The first time she catches herself listening to one of his songs on repeat she rolls her eyes at her own damn self and resolves to be less of an asshole about Killian doing his damn job. It doesn’t help that Mary Margaret and David are both wrapped up the the reality of having a newborn - she barely sees them, and when she does they both look like they haven’t slept in days. She can’t really blame them, but she’s... _lonely_ , for the first time in a good long while, and for once in her life she’s no longer used to it.

The first weekend he’s home is tentative - they’ve spent three months apart and their routines are off. They bump into each other as she leaves the bathroom and he enters it; the coffee isn’t strong enough; he mumbles under his breath when he finds her towel on the floor; he scratches at his nose in irritation and Emma, who used to find the motion so endearing, wants to smack at his hand.

All of these things once would have been signs for Emma to run. She’s never been very good at relationships in general, always looking for the first thing she can to leap right out of a commitment, but this time she takes a breath, watches him as he reads something over Henry’s shoulder, eyes the way his sweats sling low on his hips, the way his hair hangs over one eye, the way his fingers tap out a rhythm against his coffee mug, and the way he glances up at her through that too long hair as if trying to discern her mood.

“I’m an asshole,” she tells the room at large. Killian raises an eyebrow. Henry snorts an affirmation, still typing away on his laptop like he’s only half-involved in what’s going on, but she knows her son, knows he’s paying attention to everything.

Killian wanders after her when she slides into the living room - she sets down her own coffee, slips her arms around him as he turns the corner, and presses her face into his chest, breathing deep.

“I missed you,” she tells him, and he stills, something catching in his breath. She tilts her head up to stare at him, finds mussed hair and uneven stubble and a hopeful glint in his gaze.   


“If there’s one thing I can assure you, Swan, it’s that I missed you more.”  


He presses a sloppy kiss into her hair, sighs long and low. 

“One more month and then this bloody tour is over. We’ll take a holiday, just the three of us.”  


It warms her heart to know that Killian will always, always include Henry in his life, but -

“Screw Henry, he can fend for himself for a few days.”  


“Hey!” Henry calls from the doorway of the kitchen, where he has no doubt been eavesdropping instead of finishing his essay at the kitchen table.  


“If you wish to leave the boy, then far be it for me to deny your wishes,” he says on a grin, and Henry huffs.  


“If you come back to find someone has Sharpied out Tim Farriss’ autograph, I’m blaming the dog.”  


“We don’t have a dog.”  


“We will when you get back from vacation.”  


It’s easy to fall back into things, after that.

\------

He takes her sailing for her birthday, and despite Henry’s dire warnings the house doesn’t burn down in their absence.

She stops waiting for the other shoe to drop, It’s a step she was never sure she’d be able to take again, and Killian acknowledges it as he always does, without fuss but with an understanding of the way she ticks that should honestly scare the shit out of her.

She gets the story about Milah Gold in fits and starts, knows that he carries some of the same scars she does. She tells him about Neal, about growing up without the family she’d always craved, about latching on to the first person who seemed to understand her, about finding out about Henry and the ridiculously short marriage to Henry’s father that had imploded the moment she held Henry in her arms and realized that Neal was never going to be enough for the two of them.

The night before they head back home he pulls out his guitar and strums at it for a while before he sings her the song that’s been dominating the airwaves the past few months, and he gets two words in before Emma has a mild panic attack she spends the entirety of the song trying to hide.

She calls Mary Margaret ten minutes after they get off the plane, while Killian is off in the bathroom.

“It’s about me,” she says without preamble, the moment her friend answers the phone.  


“Good morning Emma.”  


“The song is about me.”  


Mary Margaret hums in agreement, but Emma can actually hear the moment the gears come grinding to a halt. “Did you...just figure this out?”

Emma tries not to read too much into the exhaustion in Mary Margaret’s voice. She has a brand new baby. She’s probably just tired.

“No one’s written a song about me before.”  


Which isn’t entirely true. When she’d been young and naive, and spent her nights following Neal and his bandmates around, their violinist August had once written a song about her boobs.

He’d called it Real Girl and the way Neal had laughed about it and then added it to their set list for the next month probably should have been a good indication of how their relationship would mature.

“Have you considered that he wrote it _for_ you, and not about you?”  


Emma spares a moment to wonder how she ever managed to figure out anything in her life before she had her friends and family to shove her gently in the right direction.

\------

Christmas comes and goes - they spend the week leading up to it at Killian’s soon-to-be-sold house in LA, packing the last of his things, and the paparazzi get one last taste of their favorite angry rockstar when he catches them hiding out across the street.

They fly home Christmas day, and Henry spends most of the place ride giving Killian as much shit as he possibly can for the moneyshot some guileless pap had managed the night before - Killian chasing him off the street, decked out in a Christmas themed flannel onsie, complete with dancing reindeer, which Killian, in his rush, had forgotten to zip any higher than his navel before he was out the door to take chase.

“I seem to recall a particularly incriminating photo of a young Henry Swan with his head stuck in a banister at Mary Margaret’s loft,” Killian tells him after Henry breaks into his fifth peal of laughter in as many minutes. “It would be a shame if Grace were to come across it.”  


“You wouldn’t.” Henry’s eyes are as wide as saucers.   


“I’m sure she’d enjoy the story even more. Once upon a time, about, oh, a year and a half ago, a strapping lad of fourteen thought it would be an excellent idea to -.”  


“Okay, fine, shutting up about the rockstar onsie look.”  


Two weeks later Glamour does a spread on up and comers in the music industry. In one particular group shot, they are all wearing one piece pajama sets, unzipped to their belly buttons.

Henry frames it next to the Christmas Eve shot and the Secret Love Child front page.

\------

Killian’s album is nominated for a Grammy, because of course it is. They ask him to perform, and he agrees with little fanfare.

Then comes the real bomb.

He asks her to come with him. As his date.

And like an idiot, Emma says yes.


End file.
